


meet us where the night ends

by justsleepwalkin



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Dreaming, Friendship, Hopeful Ending, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Major Spoilers, Nightmares, Spoilers, c2e123, cosmic horror, cryptic mighty nein
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsleepwalkin/pseuds/justsleepwalkin
Summary: Caleb's voice from the Message spell rings through Essek's mind and it's alarming enough because of the Mighty Nein it's always Jester to reach out:“Essek, we're coming in hot, it's not going to be pretty, I don't know if anyone is chasing us, I'm sorry. We're almost there.”
Relationships: Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast, Lucien & Essek Thelyss, The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 9
Kudos: 247





	meet us where the night ends

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [♫ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkl40HDiELc) Meet Us Where the Night Ends by MONO

Caleb's voice from the Message spell rings through Essek's mind and it's alarming enough because of the Mighty Nein it's always Jester to reach out: _“Essek, we're coming in hot, it's not going to be pretty, I don't know if anyone is chasing us, I'm sorry. We're almost there.”_

“Coming in hot” and “it's not going to be pretty” were understatements. Essek barely has time to get to the wall and inform the guards to hold when he catches first sight of the blue owl coming out of the snow, leading the charge. He can just make out the silhouette of a figure in claws and on her back before a mammoth is storming in behind, all heading for their outpost. 

“Don't fire!” Essek yells, trying to get a tally of the Mighty Nein while also making sure there were no attackers on their heels. “Open the gate!” he commands. 

He's been at the outpost long enough that orders from the Shadowhand aren't questioned, but _this_ is where he gets the barest of hesitance from the guards, like they're wondering about his sanity. He doesn't care. One fierce glare, the crackle of magic at his palm, and the gate guards begin to crank open the large double doors. 

The blue owl flies overhead—no, _flying_ is too kind a word; the owl crash lands in the center beyond the wall, her party members in disarray around her. “Eyes alert!” Essek shouts over the tear of wind, “keep watch for pursuers!” And he turns, descending the stone stairwell, almost losing his float in his haste, but he can't, not here, not now. 

He grabs a nearby soldier, drawing them in close to him. “Bring the Clerics,” he says, and pushes past to where the owl's form is shrinking into the form of Jester, and Yasha and Fjord are staggering to sit up from the unexpected fall. 

The mammoth tramples in, stopping just shy of Essek, and he looks up to see the rest of the party clustered about the back like mushrooms, all bloodied and beyond exhausted. The mammoth lowers to their belly to allow the M9 to dismount, but Essek can see the way all their eyes are beyond the now-closing gate, haunting, adrenaline still a constant chokehold on them. 

He catches Caleb by the shoulder before the wizard topples over and is surprised by how he flinches from the touch. Essek curls his hand back in towards himself, frowning at the wildness in the wizard's eyes. “Your ally, Dagen, made his way here recently. I was able to parse some of Jester's notes. What's changed?”

“Everything,” Caleb rasps, holding a hand over the shoulder that Essek had touched. Caleb startles, looking behind him as the outpost Clerics start for his party. 

“They're healers,” Essek says, hovering to block Caleb's path. “How many do you expect may be in pursuit?” 

The mammoth's form shudders and changes and Beauregard stumbles to her knees, breathing hard. “Five,” she says. “They can probably track us with how much of our blood they spilled. _Shit_. Jessie, can you get _rid_ of that _thing_?”

“I don't know!” Jester says, hugging a bag to her chest. “Anywhere we send it isn't safe! Do they even care about it anymore or do they just want us dead? We shouldn't even—we shouldn't even _be_ here! We're only a danger to everyone around us!” She looks to Essek and he can see tears in her eyes. “I'm sorry, we had nowhere else to go.”

“I told you to come here,” he reminds her, desperate to understand what was causing her fear. “You _are_ safe here.”

“If they follow us no one is safe!” she argues. 

Beau pushes to her feet and Essek's gaze is drawn back to her and he catches sight of the red eye on the back of her hand.

“What is that?” he asks.

She looks down to what has his attention and then jerks her hand up, slapping her other hand over it. “A mistake,” she snarls, but he doesn't think the aggression is directed towards him.

“Beauregard,” Caleb scolds.

“Don't act like _you_ don't have a problem with this either, Caleb,” she says to him, tossing her head in Essek's direction to indicate him. 

Essek knows he's missing something but it usually didn't hit him this hard. 

“You all need sleep,” he says. “A full night's rest. My guards will keep watch throughout the night.”

“I don't want sleep,” Caleb murmurs. 

“You have to,” Caduceus says. “We'll watch over you.”

“Sleep monitors, remember?” Fjord puts in. He turns to Essek. “You got some beds we can use?”

* * *

“One foot in front of the other.”

Essek looks up from his desk, frowning at Caleb in the doorway, swaying side to side, gaze vacant like he sleepwalked here. 

“Caleb, you should be sleeping,” Essek chides, standing and moving over to the wizard, almost taking him by the arm to pull him in, but then remembers the way Caleb flinched from his touch. 

Frumpkin scurries in ahead of Caleb, back arched and fur bristled as he hides behind Essek's legs, a low-grumbled growl coming from him as the fey cat watches Caleb.

That doesn't seem like a good sign. 

Caleb steps in. Essek closes the door behind him and doesn't take his eyes off the man. “Caleb?”

Caleb murmurs something in Zemnian, the words slurring together with his exhaustion. 

“Caleb,” Essek says again. “Do the others know you're up?” 

Caleb ignores him and bends down towards Frumpkin. The cat hisses and curves away and continues to shadow Essek instead. Caleb sighs and reaches up to scratch at that same shoulder and Essek sees that same red eye that Beau had, but on his right hand. 

That hadn't been there when they arrived. 

Essek looks down at Frumpkin, the cat keeping contact with his leg, never allowing any space to come between them even as Essek moves. 

Caleb turns his head and smiles at Essek. It doesn't quite fit right. 

“Now, don't be like that,” Caleb says to Frumpkin. He shakes his head and stands and is suddenly very much in Essek's space, reaching out with the tattooed hand and the eye pulses with power, glowing bloodied. His teeth are sharp and Frumpkin howls, climbing up Essek's robes to his shoulder and swiping a claw at Caleb. 

Caleb draws back with a curse and his form blurs away into a red-eyed purple tiefling. “So rude,” the man says to the cat, but smirks at the stunned Essek. He laughs. “I can see you,” he sings, reaching up and pricking a finger at Essek's forehead, nail digging in to draw blood. “He was mightily interested in you. And now, _I can see you_ ,” he repeats.

Essek wakes with a jolt, leaning back abruptly in his desk chair, breathing heavily. His forehead is wet and he reaches up a fingertip to scoop the trickle of blood and stares at it unseeingly, then his gaze blurs and he looks beyond to the top of his desk where Frumpkin is curled up in a small ball. 

“What?” he whispers. “What was...” 

His door creaks open and Caleb falls through, panic in his eyes, the same wild energy that had been there when he arrived at the outpost. 

“Essek,” he breathes. “He's coming.”

Essek ignores the feel of vertigo as he stands again. Frumpkin stretches out, but doesn't hiss at Caleb this time. Still, the cat stays stalwartly near Essek, and Essek doesn't know what that means, doesn't think the Frumpkin in his dream was a manifestation of his mind. 

“Who is?” Essek asks.

“The man in your dream,” Caleb says with a freakish certainty. His hand grips the doorframe. The same hand in the dream with the tattoo, the same hand again sharing that tattoo. “Lucien.”

“What do you know about my dream?” Essek says, fear growing as he tries to make any _sense_ out of what's going on. 

“I was there,” Caleb explains. “I—I didn't want to sleep.” His expression breaks. “I shouldn't have slept. Essek, I don't know how to fix this. Any of this.”

“If you just _tell me_ , Caleb, I can help!” Essek says, voice rising. 

“I'm afraid,” Caleb whispers.

“Of me?” Essek demands.

“Myself,” Caleb answers. “I wanted to be afraid of you but it was just me. It was all me. And I... I walked right into that path and now he's coming for _you_.”

Essek could throttle the man. He didn't have this problem before the Mighty Nein. He didn't have to worry about _caring_ about people. He's spent _days_ always concerned over the messages he received from Jester, listening to her growing terror, the stress in her voice. And he could do _nothing_ but wait and now they're here and he _still_ doesn't know how to help, and why did no one ever tell him how painful friendships could be?

He steps towards Caleb and he expects the man to dissolve away from him again into this—this _Lucien_ fellow but Caleb is just a trembling mess of nerves and Frumpkin watches from Essek's desk. 

“ _Why_ is he coming for me?” 

“Because he saw into me head,” Caleb says, holding up the hand with the eye, like it was any answer. “He followed the link to find a way to break me. T-To break Beau. He looked for my secrets for what I couldn't afford to lose. And like an _idiot_ I led him right here.”

“Caleb,” Essek's voice wavers, “I don't understand.” 

Caleb drops his hand and smiles and this time it fits there, but it just breaks Essek's heart. “I can't afford to lose _you_ , Essek.” 

“Caleb...”

“Please,” Caleb says. “You have to run. It isn't safe. He will tear you apart and make sure I watch.” 

“ _No_ ,” Essek growls. “I'm not _abandoning_ you to this madman! Vermus Outpost _will_ hold.”

“ _Essek_ —”

Essek reaches out to him and this time when he lays a hand on Caleb's shoulder, Caleb doesn't flinch. “ _I_ can't afford to lose you either, Caleb,” Essek tells him firmly. 

“But we _can't_... Essek, they nearly wiped us out!”

“All the more reason to fight with you,” Essek reasons. “Caleb. The world has an infinite number of possibilities; you know that.” His hand tightens it's hold. “Many are never realized, lost in that great expanse.” He hears the shout of the wall guards. Meets Caleb's gaze. “The rest we have to grasp for ourselves—I only know that now because of you. _We_ make our own outcomes. Whatever path you found yourself on I'll help you forge a new one. Just _let me_ , Caleb. You have to let me help.”

Alarms are sounding off around the outpost. There's a buzz under Caleb's skin. He's still trembling. Frumpkin once again climbs up to Essek's shoulders but is purring instead. 

“Okay,” Caleb whispers, reaching up to lay a hand over Essek's. “Okay,” he repeats, a little stronger. 

All they need is one single mote of possibility.

**Author's Note:**

> me before I started writing: I'm just gonna write something quick with them getting to the outpost  
> me three pages in: how did this happen  
> also me: I'm so exhausted I'm supposed to be asleep oh my god what did I just do
> 
> also for some reason I thought Message was 1000 ft not 120 ft but whatever let's just say it was snowing enough that the guards didn't shoot them before Caleb got Message off since y'know Jester was an owl and couldn't use Sending
> 
> whatever, D&D


End file.
